Still, Apple’s transformation from the world’s premier growth stock into, arguably, the world’s premier dividend play has been incredibly fast. And here’s why.

(For the record, the data on the chart above is adjusted for Apple’s recent seven-for-one split.)

During the headiest period of Apple’s growth, the technology giant was engaged in a perpetual expectations game with investors. The game worked like this: Apple would post killer quarterly results. At the same time, it would offer low-ball estimates of the coming quarter, in an attempt to keep investors’ sentiment from getting too frothy. Then the company would report the next quarter’s results, which clobbered expectations, while again low-balling estimates. And so it went, for years.

This isn’t a sign of failure. This is math. As profits get larger and larger, it becomes more and more difficult to generate large-percentage growth. In other words, this is what a very successful maturing company looks like.